The words ”Happy New Year” were probably not bubbling for long in the minds of train commuters in the Midlands as they were bundled onto buses in their thousands on 2 January because of engineering overruns on the West Coast main line. Liverpool Street overland station remained closed too, but opened the next day, while the main line delay dragged on till 4 January.
Britain invented the railway, but we don”t want that phrase to turn into the perfect Christmas cracker one-liner.
Against a backdrop of above-inflation fare rises the failure of our trains is no laughing matter, but it has provided opportunity for some political point-scoring.
In the House of Commons, shadow transport secretary Theresa Villiers weighed in with: ”The disruption over new year was a monumental foul-up. The underlying problem is that when it created Network Rail, the government failed to put in place effective means to ensure that it was answerable for it actions.”
No mention of the Tories” privatisation and break up of British Rail, since when the public pays three-times more money in subsidies, and many times more for fares.
But eyes have turned to the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR), whose job it is to take Network Rail to task.
”We fined them ”2.4m ($4.7m) for the overrun of signalling work in the Portsmouth area at Christmas 2006, and it could be that another one might be appropriate but it”s difficult to say. It may need more other drastic action which we”ll need to consider.”
If a fine didn”t have any effect last time, will that do now? Anyway, what on earth would be the point, seeing as Network Rail is a subsidised company which has to reinvest all of its profits in infrastructure? Ultimately a fine hits taxpayers” pockets.
So what ”drastic action” can be taken? The regulator has said its urgent investigation will cover not only the details of this case but ”Network Rail”s approach to planning and managing major projects on the railways.” You”d certainly hope a company whose job it is to plan and manage railway projects would have a competent approach to those two things in particular.
The ORR”s findings are expected before February has drawn out of the station, but a fundamental problem seems clear. That is, the railways engineering company operates independently to the companies which run the trains. Will problems cease while one doesn”t have much responsibility, or accountability, to the other, and if there”s no united vision or goal?
Whatever the answer, passengers don”t want continued repetition of the same problems.
Virgin Trains ” one operator which lost millions of pounds in revenue because of the chaos ” is relying on Network Rail to complete other engineering projectson the West Coast line before next Christmas, when it plans to introduce more frequent London-to-Glasgow services.
Virgin complained to ORR that Network Rail breached the terms of its operating licence, but said a huge fine was not necessarily the answer. Rather, it wants the company to have to overhaul its planning procedures, and carry them out in a ”far more orderly process so everyone knows what journeys will be possible and what timings will be available.”
One drastic solution - renationalisation - was projected in terminology very much worth repeating by the RMT general secretary, Bob Crow.
First he attacked Network Rail ” ”The very fact that it is so dependent on a maze of contractors and sub-contractors is at the root of the problem. It is ludicrous that work planned months ahead should have over-run so seriously because there weren”t enough contract staff to do it.”
He then turned his fire on the operators ” ”Between them, the privateers have leeched more than ”10bn in profits out of the industry. Franchising doesn”t work, the contract culture doesn”t work, the train-leasing companies make profits that would make Al Capone blush and the whole lot is overseen by a watchdog with two heads.”
Bringing the whole railway operation back under one national umbrella operation would seem unlikely, certainly in the near future. The RMT”s quick-fix suggestion is to at least have all engineering work carried out in-house by Network Rail, which currently farms out billions of pounds worth of work (including the overrunning Rugby project).
From 2004, the company has begun taking more maintenance contracts back in-house, since when the RMT says delays caused by infrastructure problems have fallen by more than 27% in two years.
Network Rail is considering taking responsibility for overhead electricity lines away from private contractors but has apparently played down reports that major project work will be brought in-house.
The company”s chief executive Iain Coucher, said Network Rail was tripped up by its dependency on a small number of overhead line engineers from private companies.
"Given that these [overhead lines] are very key resources, we will be looking to use more of our own people to do that specialist work," he said.
The rail regulator will first have its say, but then some action is needed so that Britain”s railways really are not the punch line in next season”s crackers.
And if Gordon Brown is serious about reducing Britain”s CO2 emissions, the government needs the railways operating smoothly if people are to be persuaded out of cars, off the airlines and onto trains.
Harry Glass
Senior reporter - ABTN
